Infinity Beach (32 page)

Solly blinked twice. No.

“You have an open air lock.”

If it wasn’t gone by now—Solly closed up, reopened the air ducts, and started the pumps. Forty minutes later they had a green board and were able to remove the suits.

“What next?” he asked as he wriggled back into his clothes.

“Go home,” she said. “Get a message to Matt. We need the Institute to figure out a way to sweep the ship to make sure the intruder’s gone. Then we can turn over the intercepts and wait for world acclaim.”

Solly returned a simple
yeah
.

The Patrol vehicle was now within optical range. They watched it move from port to starboard, apparently conducting a visual inspection. It was smaller than the
Hammersmith
, but it looked efficient and deadly. A ring antenna rotated slowly.
“Hammersmith,”
they said, “we will be coming aboard. Blink once to acknowledge.”

“That’s not routine,” said Solly. “They probably have orders to take us into custody.”

“It’ll get straightened out when Matt—” A puzzled expression had appeared on Solly’s face. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

He shushed her and cupped his ear. The engines were changing pitch. The mains grew louder and Kim sank back, was
pushed
back, into her seat. They were changing course.
And accelerating.

“What the hell—?” Solly punched keys on the status board.

The Patrol demanded they return to base course and speed.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Don’t know. Ham, what’s happening?
Ham
?”

The mains were still cranking up. “We’re moving toward jump status,” Solly said.

“That goddamn
thing
is still here.” Kim barely breathed the words.

Solly went to manual again and pulled the emergency engine cut-off toggle. Nothing happened. They continued to accelerate.

“It’s taking the ship.” Kim felt panic rising in her belly. “Heading for home.”

“Isn’t gonna happen.” Solly went back into the closet, where she knew he was going to cut the power again.

She heard him remove the panel, heard him pull the switch. “Goddammit,” he said. “It doesn’t work. The son of a bitch has killed the circuit.”

“What can we do?” asked Kim.

He consulted the status board. “It’s going home,” he said. “Taking us with it.”

“Can we disable the engines?”

“Not if we can’t shut down the power. There’s not enough time.”

She was unbuckling. “How about hitting them with a wrench?”

“They’d probably blow on the spot. There’s a safer way.”

She followed him out into the passageway and down the stairs. “What? Do these things have a self-destruct mechanism?”

“More or less. All we have to do is cut in the jump engines prematurely. Before they’re ready. That’s instant overload. Do you have the disk?”

“What? How do you mean?”

“Blow it up, Kim. Come on, let’s go.”

He meant the intercept disk, the one with the
Hunter
recordings. She stopped to snatch it out of her room. “Get your commlink too,” he said.

There were a few other items as well that she’d have liked to save, but it didn’t look as if they’d have time to pack.

“Didn’t you say there was a safety feature?” she asked.

“I’ve already overridden it.” They were hurrying down to the first level.

“How do we do it without getting killed?”

“From the lander,” he said. “But we have to make this fast.”

They retrieved Emily’s body. Then Solly led the way to the launch bay and stopped in front of a control board. “Never had to do it this way before,” he said, typing in a command. Two hatches opened in the lander, one to the cockpit, the other to the lander’s cargo hold. They secured Emily in cargo and climbed into the cockpit. Solly took the pilot’s seat, and began hitting switches. Power came on. Then he turned and looked at her with a pained expression. “I forgot something,” he said. “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

He squeezed her wrist and climbed out.

She watched him dash across the launch bay and out into the corridor. What could have been so important that—?

The hatch closed and clicked. She looked out across the empty bay. “Solly?”

The engine changed pitch again.

She tried to raise him on the commlink. “Where are you, Solly?”

The connecting door between the launch bay and the corridor swung shut. A ferocious fear gripped her.
“Solly!”

“Kim.” His voice came from the link. “Kim, I’m sorry.”

“No!”
she shrieked at him.
“You can’t do this—”

“I’ve no choice, Kim. Listen to me—”

“I don’t understand.”

“I can’t detonate
Hammersmith
from the lander.”

“But you said—”

“I lied. I’m sorry, I lied. If I hadn’t you’d have insisted on staying, and I couldn’t allow that.”

“Then back off. Let the Patrol do this. They can blow the thing to hell.” She was trying to get the door open so she could get out of the lander but red lights were blinking, telling her the air pressure outside had begun to drop. Everything was sealed.

“There isn’t time, Kim. They’re not going to attack an Institute ship on our say-so. The thing’ll get away. It’ll go home with the
Hammersmith
and they’ll know where we live.”

“Please, Solly,” she sobbed. “Don’t do this.”

The lander was moving beneath her, slipping its moorings.

“I can’t fly this thing, Solly.”

“You don’t have to. The initial launch will get you clear. Then just tell the computer to take you to the Patrol. Or wait for them to pick you up.”

“Solly, I don’t want to live without you.”

“I know, babe. Always have.”

She banged her fists against the hatch.
“No, Solly. No no no no—”

“Goodbye, Kim. Don’t forget me.”

She squeezed her eyes against the flood of tears. Engines
surged. The launch gear clicked and whined. Then the lander dropped and she was out among the stars.

Another voice broke into the cockpit. The Patrol. “—Please advise, lander,” it was saying. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t do it, Solly,” she screamed. “I’m coming back. Lander, take me back to the
Hammersmith
.”

But a brilliant flash illuminated the cockpit. And she heard the Patrol voice saying
“Holy God.”

Kim was barely aware of being retrieved by the Patrol. They gave her something to calm her down. They assigned a female officer to stay with her until the trank took effect, and Kim fell into a nightmarish sleep in which Solly was alive and well and talking to her as if nothing had happened, but she knew he was dead, knew it was only a reprieve until she returned to the real world.

She had flashes of being carried on a stretcher, of getting into the lift at Sky Harbor, of being loaded into a flyer.

The real world, when she got back to it, consisted of white sheets, an uncomfortable pillow, and Matt Flexner. And the impression that somebody else was standing behind him.

“How’re you feeling, Kim?”

There were blank spots in her memory. She recalled the lander, but not how she’d got on it. She recalled finding Emily, but not how they’d tracked her down. She knew that Solly was gone. But that knowledge was attended by a general numbness.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”

“You want to tell us what happened?”

The person behind him came abruptly into focus. Canon Woodbridge. Casually dressed in black slacks and a gray pullover. She hadn’t seen him since the night they’d launched the Beacon Project. He came forward, essayed a smile, pulled up a chair, and said hello.

Kim returned the greeting. Then: “Solly’s dead, Matt.”

“We know. How did it happen?”

“Where are we?”

“Friendship Hospital. You’re okay. You’ve been released.”

“There’s something out there. Celestials.”

Woodbridge looked at her for a long moment. “What happened?” he asked. “Where did Emily’s body come from?”

Everything was coming back now, although details still eluded her. “She was left behind,” she said.

“Where?”

“Alnitak.”

“Where?”
demanded Woodbridge.

“It’s one of the stars in Orion’s Belt,” said Matt.

She could see the pulse in Woodbridge’s throat. “Please explain what happened, Kim,” he said, in a surprisingly gentle voice.

She described everything. She explained that they were trying to find out where the
Hunter
had gone. She told them how they had intercepted the broadcasts between the Tripley mission and an unknown vessel, and she showed them the disk. She described the object that had come in pursuit, and how Solly had gone outside to get rid of it. “But it didn’t work,” she said. “Something got on board. And it tried to take us over.”

“Kim,” said Matt, “are you
sure
?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said. “It’s in the ship’s record.”

“There’s not much left of the ship’s records,” he said softly.

Of course. Her mind was still at quarter speed. The
Hammersmith
had died. And Solly with it.

“It doesn’t matter at this point,” said Woodbridge. “Whatever happened, it’s over.”

“You need to warn people about the Alnitak region,” said Kim. “Probably about that whole area. Quarantine it. Keep them away.”

Woodbridge frowned. “I don’t see how we can do that.”

“Why not? These things are
malevolent
, Canon.”

“That’s why we can’t do it. Look—” He turned the chair around, moved it closer to the bed, crossed his arms over its back, and braced his chin on them. “It’s not that we wouldn’t if we could. But we’ve no way to enforce any such stricture. Not even with Greenway registrations, let alone with anybody else’s ships.”

“Then issue a warning.”

“What do you think would happen if we did that?” He lowered his voice, suggesting he was taking her into his confidence.

“Every private vessel with long-range capability,” she said, “would immediately go out there.”

“That’s right. That’s exactly what would happen.” He looked over at Matt. “Your colleague here is already thinking he’d like to go himself. Isn’t that right, Matt?”

“Not if these things are lethal,” he said.

Woodbridge managed a reassuring smile. “What it means is that somebody would eventually give them our address. If your story, and your interpretation, are correct, we have a serious problem.”

“So what
are
you going to do?”

“Nothing.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Nothing. Not a thing. We want to keep people away from the area. That’s our prime concern.”

“You’ve just said you can’t do that.”

“I said we can’t order them to stay away. Or warn them. But nobody ever goes there anyhow. When was the last survey done at Alnitak?”

“Two centuries ago,” said Matt.

Woodbridge looked with satisfaction at the ceiling. “My point exactly. The place is remote, nobody cares about it, it’s
not exactly a tourist spot. If we say nothing about this, nothing to anyone, I think we can assume there’ll be no further visits over the short term.”

“What about the long term?” asked Kim.

“The government will begin to prepare quietly. I’m sure those preparations will include some automated probes. We should be able to find out what’s happening without undue risk. Of course, everything depends on nothing being said about celestials outside this room.” He looked at Kim. “We can count on your discretion, I’m sure.”

“I was expecting a parade,” she said, trying to make a joke of it.

An uneasy smile touched his lips. “I’ll arrange something.” He got up and turned to Matt. “The Institute of course will want to drop the charges.”

“Oh,” said Matt. “I don’t think Phil would be amenable to that.”

“He’ll have to be. Bury the incident. The ship wasn’t stolen; it was a communication breakdown.”

“I’ll tell him what you want,” Matt said. “How do we explain the loss of the
Hammersmith
to our board of governors?”

Woodbridge pulled on a jacket and started for the door. “I don’t know. We haven’t completed our investigation yet. Tell Agostino I’ll call him this afternoon and let him know what caused the accident. It
was
an accident, by the way.” He glanced at Kim, but continued talking to Matt. “When’s the next nova?”

“In a couple of weeks.”

“That’ll be the third one.”

“Yes.”

“It’s the one that will establish the timing sequence. Identical intervals between events.”

“That’s correct.”

“It’s what indicates the events are triggered.”

“Right.”

“Cancel it.”

“
Cancel
it?” Matt looked shattered. “We can’t do that.”

“I don’t think the Council would agree, under the circumstances, that advertising our presence is a good idea.”

“But, Canon, light from the novas won’t reach Alnitak for a thousand years.”

“Matt.” The room grew intense. “There’ll be a court order in a few days suspending the operation for environmental reasons. It’ll only say ‘suspension.’ But you won’t want to plan on any more of these explosions.”

Matt looked over at Kim and she could see he was assigning the blame to her.

“Something else you should know, Canon,” Kim said. “The creature that was on the ship—”

“Yes?”

“There’s another one, or something very much like it, in the Severin Valley.”

His brow creased. “The Severin Phantom?”

“Yes.” She saw him glance at Matt. Too many wild stories for one day.

“We’ll look into it,” he said.

“Canon,” she asked, “this didn’t happen before, did it? A cover-up?”

He stroked his beard, apparently puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Twenty-seven years ago.”

“Oh,” he said. “The
Hunter
. No. Not that I know of.” He must have read the skepticism in her face. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Kim.”

“Okay,” she said.

He paused in the doorway. “I’m glad to see you’re all right. And I’m sorry about Solly.”

At home, Shepard greeted her with enthusiasm. He was glad to see her again after all this time. He’d been worried, he said, about reports of her misadventure. And he was dreadfully sorry about Solly, whom he’d liked.

Messages were waiting.

Most were from friends and relatives, some with advice,
others saying they were glad to hear she wasn’t a thief after all. The Institute had already released its statement, explaining that the entire
Hammersmith
affair had been a misunderstanding. There were a few lawyers who thought she should sue somebody, usually the Institute for operating a vessel with unsafe engines, or for defamation of character. Sheyel expressed his concern, saying that he assumed the incident was connected with the
Hunter
, that he’d been surprised and gratified that she would go to such extraordinary lengths. He was, he added, anxious to hear what she had learned.

The cause of Emily’s death, the authorities announced, had been massive abdominal and chest wounds. Possibly inflicted by a particle beam or a laser. Rumors of scandal swirled: There’d been a lovers’ quarrel and she’d been thrust out the air lock; Kane and Tripley had been in collusion and had murdered the two women, probably because they refused to cooperate in some sort of bizarre sexual ritual; Life on board the
Hunter
had been orgiastic in nature and the murder had occurred after a wild night of debauchery; Tripley and Kane had been homosexuals who’d wearied of trying to deal with the constant demands of the women, had killed one, and let it serve as a lesson to the other. Authorities promised a full investigation. Meantime, both men’s reputations were demolished. And Kim was sorry for that.

So was Ben Tripley, who had been thrown on the defensive by the blizzard of charges that rained down on him. Tora Kane issued a terse statement denying that her father would ever deliberately have harmed anyone. Next day an editorialist commented dryly that any number of Pacifica’s defenders had died at his hands during the late war.

The official story moved Emily’s death several hundred light-years, well away from Alnitak, so as not to rouse any interest in that area.

Kim still had no idea how or why either of the women had died. She felt responsible for the charges being laid against Tripley and Kane, but for all she knew it was possible the two men had done everything that was now being
charged against them. Somebody, after all, had killed the women.

She got a cold reception back at the Institute. Solly’s friends, who were legion, wondered, sometimes in her presence, what was so important that it had cost his life, how she had happened to get clear in the lander while Solly was left in a ship with, as the official report put it, an “overload” in the jump engines. They pressed her for answers and found the story she contrived, that they were following a first-contact rumor, unconvincing. She became a pariah.

Agostino rehired her, but refused to allow her in his office when she went up to thank him. She was informed that he blamed her for the cancellation of the Beacon Project. She pointed out to Matt that the project had become redundant.

“Doesn’t matter,” Matt said. “A lot of people put their life’s work into Beacon. And it was a moneymaker for us. Nobody knows that better than you. And the general public doesn’t know it’s redundant. They think it failed in some way.”

When Emily’s body was released, Kim arranged a memorial service.

They held the ceremony on a beautiful April afternoon, under a quiet sky. Kim selected a grove not far from the Institute for the service, and the place filled with friends and family. The Sea Knights came out and stood by her, asked how she was, and offered their condolences.

Two days later, a similar event was held for Solly.

The second memorial was conducted on a windswept hillside near the ocean. Solly’s family was there, mostly people she’d never seen before. The Sea Knights returned and gathered beneath a flapping banner that carried their insignia, a trident on a white field. The Institute turned out in force. Even Agostino showed up.

Solly’s friends, as custom directed, came forward to talk about him. Others simply stood, wiping their eyes.

The wind blew off the ocean. A composer whom Solly had once carried from Earth, and whom he’d befriended, had written a score, “Though Tomorrow Never Come,” for
the occasion. He’d brought along a vocalist to perform it, and Kim stood listening while tears ran down her face.

Eventually, as she knew would happen, her name came up.

Solly’s brother pointed her out, standing with the Knights. “Kim Brandywine,” he said, “the young lady for whom Solly gave his life.” They all looked her way, expectantly. “Kim,” he added, “why don’t you come on up and say a few words.”

She’d hoped to be left quietly to herself. But this had been unavoidable, the least she could do, and she’d prepared. She had taken a trank to try to hold herself together, but it seemed to have done nothing to assuage the grief and loss, so her mind went blank and she forgot the lines she’d memorized, and instead talked in a halting tone, on automatic, uttering banal phrases which the wind blew away.

“—Most selfless man I’ve known—” She could see a sail receding on the horizon and it seemed less real than the seascapes she’d seen in the windows of the
Hammersmith
, with Solly at her side.

The sun was bright and the sky empty. “—I would not be here today—”

She fought back the tears and, at the end, her voice rose over the wind. “God help me, I loved him—” A pair of gulls soared over the surf.

And she heard a child’s voice up front: “Then why’d she leave him, Mommy?”

When she finished the brother thanked her politely, took a few more speakers, announced that refreshments were available in the south pavilion, and drew the ceremony to a close.

Kim stood for several minutes, unable to leave. Several of the Knights came over to talk to her and wish her well. Then she was startled by a glimpse of Solly’s perceptive blue eyes. They belonged to a young woman with long dark hair.

“I’m Patricia Case,” she said. “Solly’s sister. I just wanted to get a good look at you.” She bit the words off like pieces of ice, fought to hold back tears, and stalked away.

It was the only time in her life Kim could recall seeing
naked contempt directed at her. “It’s not what you think,” she called after the woman. “It wasn’t like that—”